Struggling Takahashi running out of time

SOCHI, RUSSIA – One day after revealing that he was still having trouble with his injured right knee, Daisuke Takahashi went through an uneven practice on Tuesday at the training rink next to the Iceberg Skating Palace.

Takahashi worked out for 30 minutes with compatriots Yuzuru Hanyu and Tatsuki Machida and two other skaters. Russia’s Evgeni Plushenko did not turn up to train.

While his teammates looked in excellent form, Takahashi appeared in anything but. He fell at least five times on jumps during the session, nearly equivalent to the other four skaters combined.

It is very apparent that something is wrong with the 2010 Olympic bronze medalist. Though he did not appear in any visible pain, the fact that he is having trouble hitting his jumps is foreboding. The men’s short program will be held on Thursday, with the free skate to follow on Friday.

While Takahashi struggled, Hanyu and Machida tore off quadruple jumps like it was no problem. Hanyu did not fall one time the entire session.

After admitting that he still had pain and water in his knee on Monday, it is hard to envision a scenario where Takahashi makes the podium here.

It would take nothing short of a minor miracle for him to win the gold, and just getting a medal seems highly unlikely based on his current condition.

This whole chasing medals thing is absurd even if it’s for one’s own country & out of patriotism. It’s sort of like chasing money which is paper. It’s less materialistic, but it’s still chasing something. Yes, chasing a dream is good! But it’s all so obscure & nothing is predictable. You could be the best skater out of the entire pact, but if something goes wrong such as injury or random error then you can score less than the podium. I do think that the Olympics is a wonderful event for athletes to showcase what they’ve been working so hard on for years. But we should all concentrate less on getting the medals and instead focus on each Athlete as a person and praise what they’ve done well on but not scrutinize them for mistakes because they themselves are already very aware of what mistakes they’ve made or what they could have done better on. But they themselves may overlook their good points so we need to tell them so that they won’t overlook what they’ve done right!